A Yemenite Jew named Yehia holding a lulav and etrog—the four species—in a Sukkah, Jerusalem, 1939.

As Jews all over the world make last minute preparations for the holiday of Sukkot, here are a few wonderful pictures of Jews celebrating this joyous holiday in Israel (and Samarkand), a reminder that Torah Judaism is eternal. All photos are from The Library of Congress.

You will dwell in booths for seven days; all natives of Israel shall dwell in booths.

—Leviticus 23:42

On the first day, you will take for yourselves a fruit of a beautiful tree, palm branches, twigs of a braided tree and brook willows, and you will rejoice before the L-RD your G-d for seven days.

This past Shabbat our rabbi delivered the traditional Shabbat T’shuvah drasha, (homily). His essential message was that Modern Orthodoxy is doomed unless the importance of traditional halacha (jurisprudence) is understood and respected. Recent trends have favored “dynamism” and “innovation” to match the times, but have neglected the legalistic principles that have sustained the Jewish people for thousands of years.

Our rabbi explained that revolutionaries since Korach have championed the idea that we are all holy, decrying Moses’s leadership as elitist and unfair. Korach was demanding the egalitarianism of the “Progressive.”

The lesson that Moshe taught Korach is that yes, we are all created in G-d’s image and he has chosen us as his holy people, but there is another, essential aspect of holiness.

…In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and you shall not do any work … For on that day he shall provide atonement for you to cleanse you from all your sins before the L-RD.

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About Me
Robert J. Avrech
Los Angeles, California

I'm an Emmy Award winning screenwriter. I'm also an observant Jew, a religious Zionist, a conservative Republican, and a member of the NRA. I've been writing and producing in Hollywood for over twenty-five years. But the focus of my life is my family: my radiant wife, Karen—with whom I have been in love with since I was nine years-old—and my two daughters, who, thankfully, look like Karen. Not too long ago, we had three children. But our son, Ariel, died at the age of twenty-two from cancer. We miss him terribly. We think about him practically every minute of every day. People tell us that time heals, but Karen and I know this is not true. Time grinds away doing its terrible work. Ariel is gone. Yet absence becomes presence.

Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.

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Young Israel of Century CityNOTE: Click on video titles inside the thumbnail images, below, to open that video in YouTube

Fifteenth: June 10, 2018Jackie Danicki: “Confessions of a Convert: A Humbling, Joyful Journey to Judaism.”